Someone on a mailing list I’m on mentioned Dr. Michael Osterholm, former state epidemiologist for Minnesota until Jesse Ventura arrived on the scene. Osterholm has written a well-received and terrifying book, Living Terrors: What America Needs to Know to Survive the Coming Bioterrorist Catastrophe, (the link points to a Nov. 2001 capsule review in The American Scientist; here’s a Google search to further references to the book) filled with scenarios which

“show how just one person, with a little training in microbiology, could bring on immense suffering. Chilling revelations from former Russian bioweapons researchers illustrate, all too clearly, the accessibility of anthrax, botulinum toxin and, most frightening of all, smallpox. These organisms can be stored in modified fountain pens, brought without incident through high-security checkpoints and cultivated into weapons of mass destruction with only mail-order lab equipment.”

Here‘s more on Osterholm, also from Google, for those who wish to pursue this further. He now heads a consulting group called ican Inc. (Infection Control Advisory Network), and although his medical politics seem to be progressive (from what I’ve read; his resignation from the Ventura administration reportedly revolved around his opposition to privatization of public health services), he appears to be connected — at least in that he is featured as one of their notable quotes — to the Journal of Homeland Security, which is published by a retired US Air Force colonel and seems to have a strong rightwing bias in the direction of military involvement in domestic civil control. [Might it even have been an influence in Dubya’s nomenclature for his new cabinet post?] The webpage of the Journal’s parent agency, the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security, run by the same retired USAF colonel, has links to suggested readings, federal organizations connected with domestic security issues, a virtual library, and outside links, among others.

Here‘s a link to a description of Dark Winter, a wargame exercise they co-led recently whose scenario involves a smallpox attack on the U.S.

One dimension of the public health response to a bioterrorist attack would be the question of who would be in charge. Writing in one of a series of articles in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) by members of the Working Group for Civilian Biodefense, a group of experts representing research, government, military, public health, and emergency management institutions and agencies (which includes Osterholm), Dr Thomas Cole warns:

Until recently… lawmakers never examined the legal authority for a response to bioterrorism. When the authors of the US Constitution were reserving public health powers to the states, all epidemics were local. Today, he said, “laws are so antiquated and unclear that no one even knows what our powers and duties are.” For example, said Gostin, it isn’t clear whether any legal authority has the power to force people to be vaccinated, treated, quarantined, or isolated. It isn’t clear whether hospitals can be confiscated, or doctors can be compelled to triage and treat patients.